Dreams and Nightmares
by Redaura
Summary: *Happy Maybe posted!* on The 'she lives' theme! Jareth knows Sarahs dreams. They run along with his, but he can't just take her... except when she suicides.....
1. No Love Injection. (Part 1)

It's amazing the amount of things I don't own. Labyrinth happens to be one of them, and there's a song in here, called "Misguided fool." I have no idea who wrote it. But I no own. :(. And one more thing...FEEDBACK! Please! You should know the drill by now;) Oh a little bit of swearing, hence the rating.  
  
/italics/ ~flashback~ *thought*  
  
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Dreams.  
  
No Love Injection.  
  
  
  
A child dreams of sugar coated fairies, romantic tales with knights and white horses, where the good can't help but win, because they have /right/ on their side. Beautiful princesses and handsome princes, people who risked themselves for good, against the ugly in and out. Evil stepmothers or tall black fairies that cast horrendous spells on innocent, baby girls. Magic granted happiness. A disillusioned child, safe within, content that her parents love her. Everything was alright and...  
  
Not a child, but definitely not an adult. She still dreams. Fantastical fantasy landscapes rise before her eyes. Animated in as a film or real life in her minds-eye. Watch the dragons flight, hear the unicorns sing. Fell the magic, feel the life. There is love. She doesn't see love anywhere else.  
  
Now a teenager, still to young for life, but how can she be shielded when life happens? See her search for her crushed dreams, buried in words and actions. ~"Give me the child."~ So, so confident, so sure, despite or maybe because of all the rejection, and so little love. She still only sees what she wants to see. ~"Toby!"~ A disappointed Goblin King in front of her, not even noticing his unshed tears, his un-shared pain, an empty shell, awaiting filling. His own dream, his own injection of fulfilment.  
  
The babe is fine, never has been unsafe, except with you, Sarah.  
  
She rips him to shreds, cruel, cruel girl. ~"You don't understand."~ It is her that doesn't understand.  
  
Curses, remnants of old past forgotten tales, grubby, after years of neglect, they all gather, making rules, needs that needed fulfilling. It would be.  
  
Just as well. Jareth couldn't think past the choked emotion that was peeping out of his cracks. Nothing except a spinning, flashing siren, "she left me, I lost," in his mind.  
  
He hurtled himself up, to the moon and stars. ~"I'll leave my love between the stars."~ That's the best the place, the one-sidedness of it couldn't fester him.  
  
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You're just a poor misguided fool  
  
Who thinks you know what I should do  
  
I lie for me and I lie for you  
  
I lose my point to a point of view  
  
Jareth lounged, insolently, seemingly unconcerned on this throne. His parents advisor looked ready to run all the way back to them, being a cleanliness freak. She didn't maintain eye contact; she was looking in angst at the mess of years of Goblins and un-house trained animals. Maybe he should clean up, but not today with Lady Advisor here.  
  
"Your parents are concerned about you..."  
  
/Bullshit/, Jareth thought, just their eastern, unwanted border that needs someone to keep an eye on it, not to mention what's on the other side. When the house of the Sid'he had attacked Jareth had had tremendous fun dumping them in the Bog of Eternal Stench. His parent's army had been disappointed; having been all pumped up on 'magic mushrooms' and ready to go kill someone. Such a nice family.  
  
Jareth stood. His lithe form towering over the seated bitch.  
  
"Give them my regards." He smashed the crystal at her feet, closing his ears to her shrieked protest as she vanished in a flash of bedazzling light. He resisted the urge to brush his hands clean dn place her in the Bog.  
  
Peace and quite, he thought, just the Goblins, but they shut up when he wanted them to. ~"Lost and lonely."~ The teaming mass of Goblins paused, stilling them selves to try and judge their fickle rulers' mood.  
  
"Well?" he demanded of them. There was a flurry of activity. He slumped back on his throne and tried not to chew his gloves absent mindfully, attempting to get to his finger nails. It was nothing-special gloves, but have you ever touched a goblin? You'd wear gloves to... Then it became expected, and he felt incomplete without them.  
  
He thought of his own demon, Sarah, as always, her dreams, and where hers became his till it was indistinctive. He knew the regret she felt, but no triumph. But first things first. She couldn't get away with it. Oh no.  
  
With chilling laughter that froze the Goblins in their play he was gone in the blink of an eye, and soaring over /her/ house.  
  
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Sarah stared at the draw that held /the/ book. She didn't have much to do if she didn't act out her dreams, but she'd learned the consequences. A flurry of white wings whirled through her window.  
  
"Jareth!" Sarah eyes widened in fear and the unknown of all emotions, held deep down inside, since her mother had left.  
  
"You still dream Sarah." His voice, only his voice.  
  
"Who doesn't? Do you dream?" she asked so softly.  
  
"Yes..." his voice hissed like water over burning stones. He closed up to hide it all from her. His loneliness, his pain, someone to ease it... Sarah, the only one.  
  
The silence stretched on, between them, blending in with the featureless room, awash with soft silver.  
  
"Why did you come?" All revenge was forgotten, just this girl, woman in front of him.  
  
"You called."  
  
"I didn't." She pointlessly denied, they both knew.  
  
Jareth raised his eyebrows, menacing, like his sudden changes of clothes. It was like you'd never seen him before, and he just was no halfway points to be found. He remembered a conversation he'd had, long ago...  
  
~"If" Jareth had spat at him, disdainfully, sick of his broken hearted lamenting, "you like her so much then tell her!"  
  
"But what if she doesn't like me?" he'd bleated. The indisition had cost him his life.~  
  
He knew, now, what she thought, he always had. But he couldn't take it; she had to give it. He left.  
  
Sarah had a dream. A lover, a friend, a home. Full of real life, unicorns and fairies. Gentleness and passion. He'd love her, he'd need her as she he. No insecurities, no doubt, just them as one. It died on her lips, withered and useless. Bitter as sees thrown to the mercy of the tornado. The wind doesn't give a damn, in the so dark, hopeless night.  
  
She collapses, useless and dead on the unforgiving boards, crystal tears paving her cheeks. Little stars, little pinpricks of sanity before the clouds sweep in, leaving her drowned.  
  
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Yeah, it does go a bit funny at the end. Anyone for any more? If no reviews it stays as thus. I also think I've invented some words, and I can't spell so... Hope you enjoyed anyway. ;) 


	2. No Love Injection. (Part 2)

Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad you liked!  
  
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The sky was grey. It wept on the frozen dying wildflowers that had been a sign of spring. Spring had gone and it hadn't even started. A false day of weak and reedy sun peeking through heavy clouds in turmoil had encouraged only the most foolhardy of nature to peek out. It had been fresh green in the park.  
  
Sarah wondered aimlessly in the driving rain, alone. No one else would voluntary come out in this weather, only a desperate dog owner or a depressed woman that had nothing inside to hold herself together. One who didn't notice the numbing cold and perpetual wet as the inner pain and lack of love in her life eat away any reason.  
  
Dare she call him? The thought zoomed around her mind. Dare she? What does he think of her? Did /he/ want her to call him? Does she dare? The thoughts of him ran round her mind, blurring and merging into on ice block, one hope. He dreamed like her.  
  
Hands numb she entered her apartment. She'd almost been as eager to leave Karen, as she had been to get rid of her. The bitch had made sure that Toby forgot her. No one to live for...nothing for her in life. The dreams of yesterday mocked her at her feet. She could see their tackiness now, what they had been, what impossibilities they where in reality. "Reality has teeth and claws." Reality doesn't dream, reality has sod to do with what you want.  
  
She entered her apartment; it's perpetual grubbiness and greasiness grinding her. She paid it no heed. She didn't acknowledge anything anymore, not since Jareth had said he didn't want her. How could she? He didn't... how could she... how he must have felt!  
  
The knife glistened on the sideboard, the only gleam in the dark and heavy room. The peeling wallpaper held its breath, the mildew sliding down. The breath was released as she grasped the knife in large, clumsy fingers, and pressed the blade to her wrist.  
  
The blood oozed lazily out at first, slowly, but that didn't bother her. "It's not long at all." She slashed deeper, trying to get feeling, trying to end it. The blood started spurting out, perhaps catching her underlying emotion of haste. Not that anyone would know.  
  
The brown flaking paint of the ceiling laughed as Sarah's eyes faded. Globes of cloudy crystals, shining then dull. The rotten boards held the meat of her body, greedily soaking up her blood and life as it spilled carelessly on them.  
  
No pain, a place where there would be no pain. Then that could be a wistful dream to.  
  
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In his bed Jareth shot bolt upright. "SARAH!"  
  
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Do I kill her? Do I not? Leave a review and say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have it typed for both! PS. Thanks for Trent;) 


	3. I Can't Live Within You.

"Sarah" he whispered brokenly. She struggled for breath. The rest had seemed so easy, but this, this wasn't right.  
  
"Jareth" she choked out, barley able to hear herself. "You…"  
  
"Shh." He said, madly calm. "You'll be alright."  
  
"It's such…such…a nice…dream…this."  
  
"It's not a dream!" he was panicked now. To late he summoned his magic to replenish the blood that was so crimson on his pale skin. To late he tried to heal her wounds. /He never should have left her!/ He rocked her body and crooned.  
  
"How you've turned my world, you precious thing  
  
You starve and near exhaust me  
  
Everything I've done I've done for you"  
  
*/I /should/ have tried harder. I /should/ have just taken you!/*  
  
"I move the stars for no one  
  
You've run so long  
  
You've run so far  
  
Your eyes can be so cruel"  
  
/Glassy and milky, staring endlessly./ */I'll shut them for you, my sweet. You can't sleep and dream if your eyes are open./*  
  
"Just as I can be so cruel"  
  
*/If I had taken you, this wouldn't have happened./*  
  
"Though I do believe in you"  
  
*/ Sleep and dream. Dance with me. You'll wake in the morning./*  
  
"Yes I do"  
  
"Live without the sunlight  
  
Live without your heart beat"  
  
*/ You still love me? Don't you. The sky weeps./*  
  
"I, I can't live within you  
  
I can't live within you"  
  
*/You where always to stubborn. I'll show you when you wake. You'll love me./*  
  
"I, I can[t live within you"  
  
*/ YOU HAVE TO!/*  
  
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The Goblins found their strong monarch curled naked around what was to them dead meat. Drying, clotting, brown blood stained the bed and him. Crazed red eyes snapped up to meet them.  
  
"She needs some clothes... Get some!" he snapped. He crouched on his bed and screamed at them "Well? Move! NOW!" They scrabbled over each other in their haste to get away from his insanity.  
  
"Your mine." He murmured lovingly to the corpse, possessively. "MINE!" he crouched back down by her. "No one can take you away. You'll stay with me. Never leave me again." The cracked whisper fell from parched lips. "I love you..."  
  
He so gently drifted off, frozen to her cold body. He dreamed of the free stars in the sky, the moon, where his love was. Where he was within. He dreamed of dancing, where love couldn't be denied and life was /right/.  
  
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In his dark castle, on the Eastern Borders the Dark Ones grinned. Her death with his insanity to flavour tasted so sweet. They massed on the edge and swarmed in. He would be an easy, juicy kill, Jareth and his kingdom. The mortal hadn't needed much prompting. That /Goblin King/ couldn't put up a fight.  
  
They swarmed like a hive of bees around the castle, terminating the sun, filling the Labyrinth with their murk and dirt. They sealed the windows, blocked any exits making the air thick with perpetual moving and whining that strained the eye. The dry, rotten leather of their wings contrasted with the rotten fluids of their skulls and endless grasping hands.  
  
When they entered Jareths' chambers, relishing its taint of decay, the body fluids of the women seeping into the sheets, it's putrid stains on the silk for eternity the stains on his body for ever in his mind. He barred his pointy teeth at them and hissed.  
  
They laughed at him, in glee and disappointment that he wasn't completely gone. He didn't heed or care about his subjects' demise.  
  
COME, YOU ARE ONE OF US.  
  
"No...But I will join you." His insanity surfaced and cooled, frozen solid. Nothing could be seen in the depths.  
  
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I had no idea that was going to happen. Who wants the "She Lives version?" Review and let me know! 


	4. Lost and Lonely

Okay people, this is where it gets complicated. This is a long time after Sarah died. Then, there'll be a big back track to before she died, and she won't die. It will be the she doesn't die version. Like two alternate endings! That's why I changed the name to Nightmares and Dreams. See? No? Oh well, just read any way;) hope you enjoy! And thank you, thank you to all my lovely reviewers! You're the best. Also I think this is it for nasty insane Jareth, possibly, we'll see where the other leg of time takes us, huh?  
  
Chapter 3. Lost and Lonely.  
  
He viewed the world as it faded. Another one lost to the Dark Sid'he. The Mortal Realms and his parents had been the first few to go. It was so much fun being evil, suppressing everything.  
  
He felt as though he was bobbing away, lost at see. Menacing polar ice caps drifting deliberately towards destruction of anything clinging onto life in the vastness of life.  
  
There where so many Realms, so many realities, so many worlds, it would only take forever to destroy and leech them all. What was left of the Underground, what was left anything they hadn't touched was like the innocence of childish dreams.  
  
/Dragons and love/.  
  
Wouldn't last long. The onslaught of adult hood took just mortal seconds to achieve when they attacked. After, any survivors...well, a man needs a hobby. Especially s the other one had rotted away. The blue planet hovered in front of his glowing eyes, reflecting on his blood-marbled crystals. Red glow on red. Just that little glimmer of blue skies...  
  
It wouldn't last long. Not long at all.  
  
***  
  
Arran laughed as he caught her, Denise in his loving embrace. She was some runner, and after making him run up the steepest mountain in sight he was going to have some serious tickling to do here...  
  
She mock screamed and gasped as he tickled. They rolled entwined in each other in the lush mountain greenery that encircled them protectively. A canopied bed with a mattress of spring grass and wild flowers. A Brooke gurgled merrily to the left.  
  
Arran couldn't imagine anyone more beautiful than Denise. Her rich dark hair swept the surroundings, complementing her hazel eyes and peachy skin.  
  
Denise leaned into his blue eyes and blond hair. Their lips hovered over each other...  
  
"What's that!" they chimed in alarm.  
  
They shot up in panic as the warning bells screamed out in the valley below them. If it was a Prince Malignant again then they where dead, with no hiding that could escape dogs and sorceress. They both shot down to the village as fast as their legs could pump, fear billowing around them as the countryside went deathly quiet.  
  
The only sound where the ragged, gasping intakes of their breaths, their heartbeat clawing it's way out of their throat to seal their airways. They reached the ridge, to skid down to safety, and could only stare in horror.  
  
The village was a teeming moving mass of black shadows, yet they where thick like an oil slick. A thick mix of death and moulder destroyed the thin air.  
  
"Well, well. What have we here?" the voice of the man behind them was elegant in a way that simple mountain folk couldn't imitate, had emotion that they couldn't name. Held a threat that they all knew, the cruelty of nature, the force of an earthquake and the tide of a volcano. They could recognise the game of the struggle for survival, but never on these terms.  
  
Arran turned first. It was his duty. If the situation had been so scary he would have laughed. Would have jeered at the strangers outlandish, mad, bizarre appearance. Would have, but dared not.  
  
He screamed, the despairing cry of the plummeting down kind, as his body fell the six hundred feet to the valley floor, where his bones crunched and his brains smashed.  
  
Jareth looked on in glee as his minions; little ogres clustered round and stared fighting, like vultures over the meat. He noted the female, looked so much like his dream... she was just looking down, after the lad.  
  
She would be fun.  
  
He raised his eyebrows to her screaming eyes; "how about we bring him back?" he looked at her pathetically hopeful denying eyes and snapped his hand out above the ledge. The 'boy' flew to hover just in front of him. The girl didn't stop screaming, couldn't stop. The delightful stench of the just dead mingled with the mutated, ghoulish goblins was sweet to Jareths senses. He looked at her face and remembered a little of long ago...  
  
He smirked, a predatory smile. "Sarah? How do you like this dream?"  
  
"What do you mean?" Denise sobbed, retching at the carnage of her Arran... his dead eye's where rolling about on invisible strings and they where soiling his dead, smashed body.  
  
She couldn't find the breath to scream as its bloody red balls carted her away.  
  
As she looked up at his eyes, they where like the crystals that had carried her here, to the black pit. Glowing orbs of red and shattered white, with flimsy pieces of blue showing here, then showing there...  
  
"Well, what shall we do with you then? Sarah." His voice, it held so much menace, and who was Sarah? "Do you know what you want? Sarah?" Denise didn't dare ask to go home, there wasn't a home to go to. The tears streamed down her face in a torrent of inner pain. "I can't hear you..." his voice swayed with singsong rhythm and childish glee.  
  
"Y...y...yes." she managed to stammer out, fear hardening her body into immobility.  
  
The guy smiled, and his eyes where flames of insanity. *I'm going to die, horribly.* was all she could think. 


	5. Finders Keepers. (She Lives version!), a...

Thank you all for the reviews! :)  
  
Chapter 3a. Finders Keepers.  
  
  
  
"SARAH!"  
  
He didn't know how, but he was with her. Her dying body in his arms. He should never have left her. She wouldn't have then, she /shouldn't/ have! It was all his fault, his beautiful Sarah...  
  
"Sarah," he murmured gently. He summoned all the magic at his disposal and tried to slow the waterfall of blood. Crimson, it was the only colour in the naught room, ruby deep on Jareths pale skin. He ignored it's cooling and worked his magic. When he had done all that he could he summoned his healers and placed her form gently in his bed. She was so small in the mass of violent, clashing silk.  
  
Leaving her to the cluster of healers that swarmed around the bed he mechanically rinsed the blood off his body and dressed to go and hover over her. Politics and parents to the Bog! He had to have /something/. Even if she only lived.  
  
The sun struggled to rise behind the perpetual drizzle of the sky.  
  
***  
  
Sarah prized her eyes open. They where gunked together, and she could barely see her surroundings. It wasn't her room. The sharp, insistent continuous ache in her wrist made her remember.  
  
*I tried to kill myself.* No emotion surfaced. Still as Lake Placid, someone disturbed the surface. /someone was /in/ her bed!/ she painfully rolled her head towards the warmth and was ashamed of her own whimper. *You got yourself into this girl.* she still couldn't' believe it, it was Jareth. She /heard/ his eyes snap open.  
  
"Sarah?" he leaned over her. Once he had assured himself she wasn't going to die he exploded. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WHERE DONG! YOU NEARLY DIED!"  
  
To Sarah's surprise and vast relief a woman's voice cut him off in mid speech. "Shut up the poor girls obviously scared! Go till you've got control of yourself. Honestly, and men say we're emotional." To further Sarah's surprise Jareth silently left, shutting the door so gently behind him. Outside she could hear him attacking the wall with crystals and words.  
  
Her vision cleared and she looked into walnuts. Brown, earthy eyes surrounded by kindly crinkles, "you'll feel sick from blood loss. We'd better get some liquids into you." To Sarah's humiliation she was supported while water was dribbled into her mouth and down her chin. To her chagrin she puked over her sheets.  
  
"Not to worry," the woman said. Sarah was lifted out and sponged off while various maids manually changed the sheets. She really should have protested more as the clean, smooth sheets where pulled around her and 'her' cotton nightie. But it felt so good not to have to do anything.  
  
***  
  
On her second awakening Jareth was leaning over her, immaculately dressed. As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her good hand she decided she wanted to hide. The expression on Jareths face froze the blazing fire.  
  
"What," he ground out with terrible icy calm, " do you think you where doing?"  
  
Sarah decided on stupidity, *blond wig, here I come.* "I don't know, the knife was just /there/ when I was feeling depressed." The silence was deathly. She fell into the trap and tried to fill it. "What do you care?" Still no response. "Well, send me back! I've got to go to work!"  
  
Jareth raised his eyebrows mockingly; "You're to ill to be moved." He said, as if to a child, "hense the reason you're sleeping in my bed."  
  
"Then where are you sleeping?" Sarah struggled briefly with a memory of waking next to warmth... but lost it with his reply.  
  
"In my bed." She didn't want to go there, especially with her hair in sweaty rats' tails and being ill. The waves of nausea and dizziness hit her. The kind, walnut lady was back, ushering the irate Goblin King out. She had one more try.  
  
"Send. Me. Back!"  
  
He whipped around and was right in her face, forcing her aching eyes to focus to sharply. "NO!" he growled at her, " you wished your life away. Finders keepers. You are /mine/." A dismayed healer practically chucked him out of the room. Sarah's mind swam with his eyes.  
  
***  
  
She couldn't do /anything/. He was always there, and he was always threatening. She was so afraid of him. He wasn't like her dream at all. In the end she took a deep breath and confronted him.  
  
"Jareth." She said. It must have been the tone of her voice, for he stopped and looked at her. Perhaps he would listen.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"What is your dream?"  
  
Jareths' face closed and he sneered at her. "I hardly think that is any of your concern."  
  
"Then why did you save me?"  
  
"Why not. Why not make you live in this misery that you have created us?"  
  
Sarah was baffled. "are you still on about when I beat you, when I wished Toby away?"  
  
"YES! Now get out of my sight!"  
  
Sarah looked at him deeper. She seemed to have struck a nerve. "I'm sorry." She mumbled and fled as fast as her healing body would allow.  
  
On reflection it would probably be better if he hadn't have heard her. She sat on her, no /his/ bed and cried, for no reason, and every reason. For nothing and everything. It was such a state to be in.  
  
***  
  
There are many endings to this side of time too. One is they sort their differences out, and they live as happily as any married couple can. Perhaps there will be children. Perhaps there's divorce, adultery or maybe another suicide. Perhaps the suicider will succeed. Perhaps they won't.  
  
Perhaps they just live out their life screaming and yelling at each and then crying behind closed doors. Perhaps he'll grow frustrated and rape her. Perhaps she'll suicide again. Perhaps she'll grow stronger than that.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
Dreams are such a fickle mistresses to follow. They change as you change. They change as the seasons turn and the world spins and they never leave you any peace.  
  
Perhaps that is why they are all some people will ever have until, in turn, life kills these dreams as well until there is nothing left. Just a rotting corpse living in a grave.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
***  
  
"And I think that's your lot. Please, leave a contribution in the little box." Maybe if you ask nicely I'll do one of the perhapses. Perhaps.  
  
*Shakes self.* okay, this is the she lives version. I hope you like. I hope you review. And thank you to all my reviewers before hand! :) 


	6. After All I've Done for You! A Happy Hap...

Okay, here's a perhaps for the Lady Sorrow who gave me lot's of reviews! (One for each chapter) Thanks! :) And all other reviewers! Any reviewers! :) Reviews will be framed and hung on the wall! Okay, I'm not that bad, but I do like reviews. 

*** 

Chapter 3. Too Stubborn.

(Of the 'She Lives' part.)
    
    Sarah awoke to the bumbling, bustling movements of the servants. It must be late, she decided, or else they would have crept in and out. She slid one eyelid up and groaned as the grey, cold light hit it. And apart from the servants she could tell she was alone. And from his scent against her skin she could tell that he'd held her through the night.

He was never there when she was awake. But when she slept... It just had to be him. Who else would dare to snuggle up to Sarah in his bed? 

The walnut lady was leaning over Sarah. "How do you feel dear?" 

"Err, okay."

"And how do you feel about living?"

"I want to live."

The walnut lady nodded in satisfaction. "I am called Tierra. I am the Goblin Cities healer. He was in quite a state when you arrived." She seemed to shake her self, "well, how do you feel about a bath dear?"

Sarah smiled shyly. "Heaven."

After a stiff hobble to the steaming bathtub in the adjacent room Sarah relaxed and flicked the bubbles about. She was squeaky clean and felt so much better for it. When she had climbed out, dried, had her damp hair combed and twisted out of the way and dressed in a loose fitting silk gown with fresh underwear she was feeling superb. She was feed and watered and was eager to get of the castle when she was coaxed out to the gardens for some air.

When she reached them she was very glad. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers, bees buzzed lazily and butterflies kissed and seduced the flowers. It was a lover's garden. It made Sarah feel monumentally sad, but she pushed the thought away. The flowers made up for that. They where bright, bold and proud, it seemed that nothing would get these magical blooms down and dead.

Sarah smiled with that thought. Nothing would get her down, ever again. She couldn't allow it.

She sank gratefully on a bench and Tierra hurried over. "Are you tired?" she asked anxiously. 

"A little, but I would like to stay out here." Tierra smiled in understanding, and Sarah was left seemingly alone to muse and wonder at all the strange and wondrous species that where not present Aboveground.

If it weren't for a certain person it might be that she would enjoy living her life here. If that certain person would only respect her... But Sarah knew the price of wistful daydreaming.

She smiled and lulled by the friendly, beautiful nature around her fell asleep.

Jareths' face was expressionless as he watched her fall asleep. His mind and insides hurt, as she was so close and yet so far. So gently he picked her body up and cradled her against his chest, feeling her softness against him. With a heavy sigh he started walking back to... _his_ room. 

He could have just translocated them, but walking seemed more appropriate.

He tucked her carefully in bed and stood back, just watching her peaceful face sleep. What could he do to make her love him?

"She already loves you, your majesty." That healer was so damn perceptive.

"Really."

"Really," Tierra told him earnestly, "you're just scaring her, with that temper of yours."

"Now don't tell me to learn self-control..." Jareth growled.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Only you can do that. Perhaps you should explain to her, she is older now, will understand more..."

"And maybe you should mind your own business!"

Tierra sighed and went to fuss over Sarah before leaving them. Sometimes Jareth was too stubborn, for she would never bend first. 

***

Sarah came awake slowly, and realised he was staring at her. She opened her eyes slowly and watched him watch her. He was so beautiful and enchanting, he made all of Sarah's senses tingle by just lounging in an ornate carved chair by his canopied four poster bed. She took in his eyes, his mismatched gaze that took in everything with almost frightening intensity. His subtle chest that peeked securely out of his low cut poets shirt with frills a plenty, tight tights that where painted on his lean, long legs with his leather, high heeled boots crossed loosely and conformably at his heels.

On any other man it would have been feminine, yet on Jareth it was utterly masculine without a doubt. He raised his eyebrows at her questioning gaze. "How are you feeling?"

Sarah blinked, surprised at his apparent calm. "Err... fine." She said. "How are you?"

His expression didn't change as he said, "in the best of health." 

He was strange that way, the way he could have so many emotions that she could never hope to comprehend, he could change and swing between them in the blink of an eye, or he could be so neutral as to be almost cold stone. 

The silence stretched uncomfortably on between then, almost twanging with tenseness and unspoken intents and secretes. Sarah caste about in desperation for something to say. Her groping mind settled on "do you get many people running the Labyrinth?"

Jareth quirked his eyebrows and lips, "more than you would think."

A nice, unspecific answer Sarah growled in the corners of her mind. "Do you get many Goblins that way?"

"More than you would think."

__

Did he know how infuriating that was? Sarah asked herself, he was either doing it deliberately or just not wanting to talk. Sarah decided that if he wanted to talk he would have to think of questions to ask. She settled back into the bed and sighed. She realised that the sheets had been washed, for his scent was not so strong on them.

He sighed. "And how are you enjoying your stay?" He seemed to grimace at that, expecting the worst.

"I couldn't say, I've been asleep most of the time."

"Yes..." he looked _through_ her.

"I have business to attend to." And he was gone a cloud of sweet glitter settling on his rich, deep rug and dusting the dark chair. Sarah imagined taking him to meet her father and Karen and Karen's face at all the dust and glitter he would leave everywhere. She laughed out loud, hearing her voice and sounds of mirth reverb around the large room.

Feeling very rested she decided to explore the room. Jareths' room, to see if she could decide what her was like from the way his chamber was shaped.

She started with the dresser. Like the rest of the furniture in the room it was large, hard wood lavish piece of furniture. The mirror was gold framed and perfect. The makeup on the top of it was scattered messily and probably expensive. Various bottles where opened and standing around in disarray where he had dumped them. _I always thought he would have used magic to do himself up_.

Showed she was wrong yet again. With a shrug Sarah had a quick glance in the draws, she didn't want to riffle through in case he noticed. There where various letters, documents and other uninteresting objects. 

On his dresser there was nothing, not an ornament or _anything_. In these draws objects rattled. Various elaborate daggers and knives mingled with some practical looking ones to Sarah's inexperienced eye. Here there was a little white figurine of an owl made form some sort of shiny, hard material that was totally alien to Sarah.

She looked in the last draw. There where pictures. Pencil, paintings, pastel and just sketches, some where of the Labyrinth, some of times and places that Sarah couldn't know, but the majority where of Sarah. When she was running the Labyrinth, when she was dancing with him, after at the party and all the times through her life. Even one of her in the bath. _He must have been watching me_... Sarah gulped.

It was scary and she didn't know what else it could be. He had been watching her all this time. How _dare_ he? He had invaded her privacy. All those times she had thought she was alone and she hadn't been... Her blood boiled, but what was she to do? What would he do if he found out she knew? What if he was watching her _right now_? She shuddered and hastily shoved the works of art back into the draw not feeling like snooping anymore.
    
    She turned round and was face to face with boots. Black leather with pointed toes and higher heels than Sarah could balance in. His boots.

__

I really should have expected that she thought dimly. His toe was tapping impatiently off the floor. Outside the sun dived behind the sanctuary of the clouds 
    
    He glared at her haughtily. "What are you doing?" he demanded in an insanely calm voice.
    Oh shit_. _


End file.
